Route reliability record
ORD→XNA
Chicago to Bentonville
- Flights
- 1,891
- Period
- September 2025 to August 2026
- Distance
- 522 mi
- Carriers
- 5
This route sits in the middle of the pack with a B. Close to three flights in four arrive on time by the DOT's definition, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.3%. The late ones land about an hour behind schedule. That rests on 1,891 ORD to XNA flights, with a median arrival 9 minutes early.
Best time to fly ORD to XNA: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Tuesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Tuesday flights 81.6%, against 75.6% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.3%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
75.6%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,842 completed flights
Avg delay
66 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.33%
National rate is 1.89%
Best carrier
Envoy
75.7% on time across 1,599 flights
These figures cover 1,891 flights between September 2025 and August 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally.
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Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on ORD to XNA
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Airlinesthin sample | 1 | 100.0% | — | 0.00% | A+ |
| Republic Airwaysthin sample | 107 | 82.2% | 45 min | 4.67% | B− |
| Envoy Air | 1,599 | 75.7% | 67 min | 1.56% | B |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 175 | 70.8% | 65 min | 8.00% | C− |
| American Airlinesthin sample | 9 | 66.7% | 45 min | 0.00% | C+ |
Flight by flight
Flights on ORD to XNA
The flight numbers below flew this route at least 250 times in the period, busiest first. Each has its own record, with its schedule and delay causes.
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Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 19 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier.
- 5am–8am267 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am184 flights81.7%
- 11am–2pm359 flights81.5%
- 2pm–5pm154 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm647 flights69.9%
- 8pm–5am280 flights68.1%
Scale runs 60% to 90%.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 68.1% for the overnight window. That is 19 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 5pm–8pm window is the busiest, with 647 flights scheduled in it.
Explore
Filter ORD to XNA by airline, time, month and day
Pick a breakdown and a carrier. The dashed mark on each row is the same slice for every US flight.
On ORD to XNA, the best departure window is 5am–8am at 86.7% on time and the worst is 8pm–5am at 68.1%, a wide gap of 18.6 points. All US flights leaving 5am–8am ran 89.3%.
- 5–8am86.7%
- 8–11am81.7%
- 11am–2pm81.5%
- 2–5pm71.5%
- 5–8pm69.9%
- 8pm–5am68.1%
best all US flightsScale 60% to 95%.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 24 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
December is the weak month at 62.5% on time, against 86.1% in May. Winter delays cluster: a single storm system can account for most of a month's shortfall, so an average December hides both very good weeks and genuinely unflyable days. July was the busiest month here, with 248 flights.
Across the week, Tuesday is the strongest day at 81.6% on time and Wednesday the weakest at 72.5%, a spread of 9 points.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 47% of the 30,000 delay minutes carriers reported here, and the remaining four split what is left.
- 47%Late-arriving aircraft
- 22%National Airspace System
- 18%Carrier
- 13%Extreme weather
Extreme weather accounts for 13% of delay minutes, well above the single-digit share typical across the system. Weather delays are lumpy: they arrive as whole bad days rather than as a steady drag, so the monthly strip above is the more useful view of the risk. The national share is 6%, so this operation carries roughly 2.2 times the usual weather exposure. The split is drawn from 29,623 reported delay minutes.
47% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. Across 30,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 4 to one.
Cancellations sit at 2.33% against a national 1.89%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.26%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
9.2% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule, against 8.3% nationally. Ninety minutes is the honest minimum for a connection here, and two hours if the onward flight is on a separate ticket.
The 522 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty.
The return leg runs 77.3% on time across 1,895 flights, within 2 points of this direction. The two legs are scored separately because they usually differ; on this city pair they happen not to.
The sample behind these figures is 1,891 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in XNA after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. May runs 86.1% on time and December 62.5%, a swing of 24 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of December before you think about anything else. 1,842 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
ORD to XNA questions
How often is ORD to XNA delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.4% of the 1,891 flights in this analysis, against 22.7% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is ORD to XNA compared with the rest of the country?
75.6% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.3%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on ORD to XNA?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 68.1%, 19 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are December delays on ORD to XNA?
December is the weakest month at 62.5% on time, compared with 86.1% in May. Across the year that is 24 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- XNA to ORD — the return legseparate record
- Chicago O'Hare International (ORD) delay statistics
- Republic Airways on ORD to XNA82.2%
- Envoy Air on ORD to XNA75.7%
- SkyWest Airlines on ORD to XNA70.8%
- ORD to LGA, a related route66.6%
- DFW to XNA, a related route77.9%
- ORD to BOS, a related route66.6%
- United Airlines on-time record100.0%
- Republic Airways on-time record82.2%
- Envoy Air on-time record75.7%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- How often a connection fails at the major US hubs
Direction matters. ORD to XNA and XNA to ORD are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, September 2025 to August 2026. Last updated ; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.